Almost half of white Americans say the USA becoming a majority nonwhite nation would "weaken American customs and values," a new Pew Research Center survey says.

The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that before 2050, the majority of the USA will be made up of minority populations. According to Pew's research, 46 percent of white people fear that would weaken U.S. culture.

A quarter of Hispanics and 18 percent of black people have similar fears. Forty percent of blacks and 46 percent of Hispanics say the shift would strengthen those customs and values.

Will a majority-minority country be good? Americans divided

More than half of Americans say they are at least somewhat optimistic for the future of the USA, but when they're asked about specific issues – national debt, affordable health care, environmental degradation, political divisions – a grimmer picture emerges.

Americans' opinions are divided when asked broadly how a majority-minority population would affect the USA.

Roughly 40 percent of Americans say the shift to a majority nonwhite country wouldn't be good or bad, and more than one-third say it would be good.

Roughly half of Americans say a majority nonwhite population would lead to more racial and ethnic conflict, according to the survey.

White Americans make up more than half of the country's population, according to the Census Bureau. The bureau predicts the year 2044 will be when minorities make up the majority. In 2060, minorities will be 56 percent of the U.S. population, the Census Bureau predicts.

Rise of anti-immigrant sentiments

This week, the Pentagon listed what projects might be delayed to pay for President Donald Trump's border wall. Trump and Republicans say the wall is necessary to combat what the president calls a "humanitarian crisis" at the border. Democrats called his declaration of a national emergency a political stunt.

A man with extremist anti-immigration views is accused of firing on two mosques last week in New Zealand, killing 50 people and wounding dozens. In the USA last year, a gunman killed 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue on the Sabbath. The suspect has expressed anti-Semitic, anti-immigration sentiments.

Anti-immigrant views are nothing new in the USA, even as historical circumstances change, and often look similar across periods, says Jack DeWaard, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota who studies demography and migration.

"What seems to be different is there's sort of a politics of fear and resentment," DeWaard says. "The issue of migration has become so much more politicized, hijacked and divorced from facts and reason than it ever has in the past."

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Fears tied to becoming a majority-minority country can partially be explained by demographic segregation and inequality in society, DeWaard says. When people don't meaningfully interact with the "other" in their daily lives, they more easily have prejudices and fears, he says.

DeWaard says there's an increasing lack of empathy in society.

"The refusal to put yourself in someone else's shoes ... people are just unwilling to do this," he says.

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24/7 Wall St. reviewed the percentage change in the population of 382 U.S. metro areas between 2010 and 2017 to identify the fastest shrinking American cities. Over that period, 25 metro areas reported population declines of between 3 percent and 10 percent. Feverpitched / Getty Images